Blessed Faces
by Tony and Ziva forever
Summary: It has been ten years since Christine left Erik heartbroken in his lair. Through the help of a young ballerina he is able to move past his self pity, but can he love again? OCs Characters from Susan Kay's book.


**Hello! warning; this is rather short, and does jump right into the story. My plan was to post the middle of three, first, even though that may cause some slight confusion. I WILL post how they met soon after this on is finished. Please no hate. **

**ps, I'm not lost in fandoms. ;) **

Erik could feel his Samantha tensing as they approached the dirtier, rougher streets of Paris. He was inwardly preparing himself, for either extreme disappointment, heartbreak, or joy. Screams, laughs, jeers, sounds they heard as they were less than a block away from the gypsy caravan sent Erik into teases of his childhood. Each step was a flashback. Each breath was a beating. He could feel his hair being pulled, yanking his face upwards. Laughter. Screams. Children, adolescents and adults saying "devils child." Erik could again feel the cold pounding of coins hitting his body, his face, the right side burned. Pain flushed his body. The strong Phantom wanted to cry. Another scream jolted Erik back to his mother's cruel refusal of love. A woman smiling, her hair dark like his. Eyes golden like his own. She was beautiful, vain, angry that her night of passion had produced a deformed child. She'd never liked to Erik sing. Erik wondered if his mother had heard his voice, his love of music, but not his face, would she have loved him? Or would it have made no difference?

"Erik," Samantha's soprano voice called out to him, "love, Erik," she couldn't get him out of the trance he was captured in. In the narrow alleyway she slammed him against a wall, not only bringing him back to the present, also sending his hand for his Punjab lasso. She stopped him with a firm hand on his wrist.  
"Erik!" Sam encased her small frame against his towering body.  
Finally he was free. Sam saw it in his mismatched eyes, "love, you are free now." Sam rose to her toes, pushing back his dark hair, then pressed a kiss to his jaw. She relaxed somewhat when she felt his hand reach behind her, pulling her closer with a comfortingly strong arm.  
"We don't have to go if you don't want to," she whispered.  
"No, I need this." Erik swallowed, Sam squeezed his hand.  
A foul stench surrounded the tent in which the gypsy events were held. As the gentleman Erik always was, he opened the flap to the raunchy tent allowing Sam to stay beside him. He handed her the two francs it took to enter.  
As a caution Erik hid his face while Sam paid, "thaunk yoh, n'joy th' show." A toothless woman took the coins, pointing them towards a tent inside the larger one. Erik kept his left arm around Sam, and his right next to his lasso. After seeing a few gruesome sights the pair, along with the crowd that paced ahead, were shuffled into the main attraction.  
Again Erik tried to prepare himself, he wanted to believe that Sam would run to the little child, the child in his place, the child said to have been Satan's. His more frequent worry was Sam would laugh along, or worse, scream in terror; he was timid to trust again after Christine. He was testing her. Erik knew her reaction to the child would be the same as to his face. Erik heard the sobs, presumably from the child.  
Lights were brightened, a voice boomed, "Monsieurs and Mademonselles, I present to you, the Devil's Child."  
A curtain was raised, revealing a small child, her face masked in a potato sack.  
"Take off the mask!" Someone yelled, when the child didn't obey a man threw a cigar at the child. It hit skin, searing it for a second then rolled off. The child showed no reaction to the inevitable pain.  
Samantha tensed, "Erik," she whispered. He squeezed her hand in return.  
A large man entered the cage, whip in hand, "Take off the mask girl!"  
She resisted and the whip cracked on her back. The crowd cheered in approval. Trails of blood followed the whip, yet no cries escaped under the mask.  
"Erik, they're hurting her," Sam's voice whispered, "Erik, we have to help her! We have to get her out!"  
Erik nodded and pointed back to the girl, just in time to see her mask being pulled from her face.  
Her face held scars, rough lumps stretching across her nose and under her left eye. The worst part was on her right, and branching over her small jaw, reaching farther than her neck.  
Samantha began crying at once, "oh Erik, the poor thing, she must be terrified! Erik we must save her! Please, love! I cannot allow her to stay in this place another night!"  
Erik drew her back from the audience, "we'll hide in the shadows until the crowd leaves. Then we will hide her under your cloak, I'll support her with my arm around you. We shan't get caught."  
Erik pulled Sam along with him, past the raunchy curtain. The show of the little girl soon ended, Sam tried to go to her as soon as the crowd was gone, but Erik held her with him, quietly telling her, "her master is counting the money, if she earned him enough he will leave, but he will whip her. They are never satisfied." Sam nodded.  
Sam bit her wrist and flinched towards Erik as they heard sounds of a whip whining through the air, and clashing as the cattails collided on her small back.  
"Ge' t'resded fer tumorrow," the captors rough voice growled.  
A small, light voice asked, "food?"  
The captor laughed, Erik and Sam heard a deep thud. Erik knew it was the butt of the whip impaling the little girl.  
Yet still no whimpers, she refused to cry.  
The captor stormed out. Erik whispered to Sam, "Go, we don't have long."  
Samantha rushed to the caged little girl, kneeling to be eye level.  
She looked horrible. It was in the low forties outside, yet all she had on was an outgrown, somewhat revealing sleeveless shirt- it looked to have once been a boys shirt. She was shoeless, and had baggy trousers, truly a pitiful sight. Sam noticed how pale she was, how her toes had a tinge of blue, while blackish- purple blotches marred her creamy pallor.  
The little girl had her 'mask' on once more, she was leant up against the corner bars.  
"Hi," Sam coaxed, the little figure moved a bit, "I'm not going to hurt you."  
The girl's tiny, frail, grimy hand reached the floor of her cage, as if waiting for Samantha's touch. Out of instinct Sam slipped her hand in through the metal bars and held the girl's hand in her own.  
"Sweetheart, we don't have much time, we are going to save you from this place."  
Erik had gotten the lock off the cage door, his strong arms reached for the child, "I won't hurt you," his tenor voice comforted, "try to remain silent, you're going to hide under Samantha's cloak, comprendu?"  
He felt a small nod from the girl in his arms. Sam lifted her thick cloak, the girl shivered as she was introduced to warmth. Sam then instructed the little girl to wrap her arms around her neck, and legs around her waist. Erik held his arm around Sam, appearing to be a loving embrace, but was really an act to support the little girl from falling.  
Escaping from the gypsy caravan wasn't hard, as Sam and Erik left the tent the Paris wind was blowing, from their front making it appear as though there was no child on Sam's back.  
He hurried Sam to the opera house, "We'll take her to your dressing room," his voice, ever solid, was beginning to waver.  
"I... Erik, I can't hide a little girl here! Someone will find her and send her away!" Worry was evident in Sam's voice.  
"I'll show you," Erik's voice wavered once more, "you okay back there?" He added to their bundle, and laughed nervously.  
"Yes," the girl's small voice answered.  
Once they reached the Opera house getting to Sam's room was easy. No one was in the building, it was one of the few days off and most were out getting drunk or such. Erik peeled the girl from Sam's back, she was shivering; though small sobs escaped her lips.  
"Erik won't hurt you, sweetheart, he's the most gentle man I know," Sam had no idea what other traumas the girl had been through, so she was even more willing to try and comfort the child. The girl was cradled in Erik's arms, legs toward Sam.  
Sam reached the girl's hand, "no one will hurt you ever again. I promise."

**Well? It wasn't completely terrible, was it? Please review, as all feedback is benifical to tweeking and fixing general mistakes. **

**xx **


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